Sunday, May 30, 1999
Giving goetta new life
BY BY LISA BIANK FASIG
The Cincinnati Enquirer
About two years ago, before the executives at Glier's Specialty Haus meats decided to tell consumers to “Goetta Life,” they had to get a focus. Who would have thought pizza would fit into the mix?
After all, the second-generation Covington company was in a commodity business two years ago. Meat was meat, sausage was sausage. Competition was competition.
So the company decided to concentrate on what it did best: making specialty sausage and making goetta (GET-uh), the German pork-and-oats dish traditional of Cincinnati. To boost sales, Glier's had to find ways to increase consumption of each.
But grow goetta? To increase noshing of goetta in Greater Cincinnati, Glier's would have to change the perception of this beloved breakfast dish: Guess what, Cincinnati. Goetta is not just goetta.
“We always had goetta, and goetta was somewhat taken for granted here,” said Mark Balasa, sales and marketing representative for Glier's. “Goetta is recognized as a breakfast food, but (we) heard about a lot of creative ways to use it outside breakfast.”
How about goetta on your pizza? Or a “GLT,” goetta, lettuce and tomato? Glier's conceptualized several uses — goetta omelettes, goetta burgers and goetta hoagies. Glier's printed up posters and table tents, and its people rushed to local restaurants, with ideas simmering.
“We never gave it any thought until Mark came over,” said Jeff Klein, co-owner of Trotta's Pizza in Western Hills. Trotta's began carrying a goetta speciality pizza with mayonnaise, lettuce, tomatoes and cheese several months ago. It also sells a regular pizza with goetta, and the GLT.
He said Trotta's sells a couple of the specialty pizzas and GLT's daily. “(They're) one of our high-selling specialty pizzas,” he said. “So far, we haven't gotten any bad response.”
Glier's also is selling goetta for different uses at Pasquale's Pizza in Bellevue, and it sold goetta pizza at the Maifest.
Mr. Balasa thinks goetta has the potential to easily double its penetration in the Cincinnati market. But one challenge in doing so is selling the goetta story to major restaurant chains based outside Cincinnati. How does Glier's explain goetta to the executives of a company based in Los Angeles?
It's an issue the company is contending with. Glier's adopted a classic-looking corporate identity to help promote its new focus. It also developed a new tag line: “Goetta life,” which graces company-sold T-shirts. Its Web site address is www.goetta.com
It's a lot of conceptualization from where Glier's was before the refocusing. Paul Coulter, an executive coach hired by Glier's as a consultant 21/2 years ago, said the company tried to be many things, and faced the rivalry of major plants, such as Kahn's.
“They were competing in a market that they couldn't compete price-wise or volume-wise with,” he said. But since the refocusing, “People are just turned on there now.”
While Glier's main thrust is to expand uses of goetta locally, it has also gotten wheels, expanding goetta distribution to about 30 Kroger stores in Louisville and Lexington. Right now, the meat company sells about 720 pounds of goetta a month at the stores. That compares with about 850,000 pounds sold in Greater Cincinnati a year.
“It's a story of a branded regional product gently pressing out,” Mr. Balasa said. The local goetta market extends about 30 to 50 miles from Cincinnati. “You pass that, and we fall off the Earth,” he said.
To further expand penetration, Glier's executives are proposing that certain distributors sell goetta to restaurants, institutions and college campuses. Glier's representatives figure the distributors have the connections, so the best bet is for them to do the pitching.
As for creating new uses at home, Glier's is working to sell goetta patties at stores — it currently sells them wholesale. It also is enjoying the popularity of its low-fat goetta, developed more than a year ago, and finalizing a new goetta product that should be easier to prepare.
Such focus and planning is good for a company's books, and it's good for its people, said Don Frodge, senior account executive at Glier's.
“We really found that by going this direction, it's really created a lot of excitement and energy.”
ENTERPRISE INSIGHT
“We saw change as a process, not some result we had to get. This change in awareness allowed us to have patience while the results unfolded.”
— Mark Balasa, Glier's Specialty Haus
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